Corkscrew

by Ted Wood

  "Hello, Corporal, this is Chief Bennett of Murphy's Harbour. I have a homicide investigation going on, and I need some help from the C.I.B. people. Can you scare them up for me, please?"

  "Hold on, Chief, I'll connect you."

  There was a pause, and I got the C.I.B. office, Sergeant Landy. I knew him, and that helped get through the formalities, but then he gave me the bad news. There had been a blazing crash on the highway outside Gravenhurst, and the boys were down there with the coroner. They wouldn't be free until ten o'clock at the earliest, and they'd been on duty since morning.

  I asked him to give them the message and have them call me first chance they got. Then I hung up and thought some more. I was going to have to proceed alone.

  The first thing I did was take the flashlight from the glove compartment and go back into the cottage. I crouched a pace inside the door and memorized the outlines of the bootprint. To guide me further, I sketched it in my notebook, taking rough measurements overall and marking in the prominent features I could make out. It was rough, but it would have to do for now. If I came up lucky with my next move, I wouldn't need anything any more fancy.

  I closed the door and hung a tag on it. "Investigation in progress. Do not enter. Call the police station," and signed it. Then I put Sam in the car and called the station on the radio.

  This time a Cockney answered. I told her, "Hi, Fred, it's your nemesis. I'm at the site of a break-in that may be important. I'm expecting a call from a family, name of Corbett. If they ring, have them come to the station and wait for me. Tell them not to touch their house, or the boat out back."

  She switched to a normal voice to answer. "Sounds heavy, Reid. You sure that's all I can do for you?"

  "Over the radio it is," I said, and she laughed and I hung up.

  I thought about my next move for a couple of minutes, trying to find something smarter to do than stick my head in the lion's mouth. But finally I faced the fact. I had to do this and I had to do it now, before anybody got time to leave. So I went ahead, psyching myself up for the confrontation.

  I drove down to the dump site and very slowly pulled the car in onto the field. The bikers had lit a fire and were standing around it with beers in their hands. The leader was in the center, holding court. Most of the others were listening, paying attention. It reminded me again of the marines.

  I parked about thirty yards short of them, respecting their space, and got out. The talk stopped, and they turned to look at me, stone-faced. It was going to be as hard as I'd expected. I waved and came forward. Nobody spoke. I said, "Hi, how's the accommodation?"

  "It ain't the Royal York," the leader said, and the others howled and slapped their legs like movie stars when a friend is breaking in a new act.

  "It's the best we've got in town," I said. "And you've got it looking real homey."

  "Not bad," he admitted, showing me his broken smile. "Wanna beer?"

  "Yeah, thanks, it would go good." Manners cost nowt, my father always said.

  One of them threw me a beer, putting a spin on the bottle so I had to snap it out of the air. Fortunately I've done that before; nobody passes anything in boot camp. I nodded, unscrewed the cap, and let the foam fizz away from me. They watched as I raised it. "Good health."

  I pulled down a good mouthful and then lowered the bottle. The formalities were over. "I have a favor to ask," I said amiably.

  "Don't press your luck," the leader said, and the others nodded. That was the way to talk to pigs.

  "No big deal. I wondered if I could take a look at your boots." I stood and waited while they looked at one another. Then one of them laughed. "You're lookin' at 'em already."

  I smiled politely. "Yeah, but I meant the soles."

  That stopped the laugh. One of them said, "What for?"

  "Curiosity." I grinned, nice and boyish, and waited. And then German Helmet tossed away his beer bottle, sending it spinning underhanded into the fire. "You piss me off," he said.

  I shrugged, letting my own beer bottle fall between my fingertips so I could upend it and use it as a club if I had to.

  "Yeah," he said. He turned to the leader. "Me an' him got something to settle. That okay?"

  I waited for the leader to interfere. But he just grinned. "Guess you do, Jas," he said. "Go ahead."

  I held up one hand, mild-mannered. Looking calm up to the last second. It's always the best tactic. "Look, I didn't come for trouble. I came to ask if I could look at the boots on you guys, that's all. Simple enough."

  "I'll show you mine. Give you a real close look," Jas promised. He was reaching for his waist, and I saw his fingers unfastening the length of chain he had around him.

  I kept my voice cool. "Yeah. So, okay. Me and you sort this out. If I'm still on my feet, you let me look at everybody's boots."

  They all roared with laughter, but the leader spoke first. And as he did, I realized I was in the middle of a power struggle. He and Jas were tussling for command of the gang. If I beat Jas, I would have their leader for an ally. It might stop the others from kicking my head in. "Yeah," he said in his gravelly voice. "Sounds fair to me. Only you ain' gonna be on your feet." He paused and then grinned again. He looked like a big, happy, ugly baby. "You're carryin'. Like, that'd spoil the fight. So you pull that thing and I blow you away. Okay?"

  "No." I grinned. "But if that's the rules, I'll have to play by them." I could see the sawed-off shotgun one of them had produced from a saddlebag. Concealed weapon! I could arrest him. Hah!

  They all laughed, and Jas grinned at me like a hungry bear. He had his chain unwound now, and he was swinging it in a figure eight, slack at first, then tightening it so it stuck out in front of him, a defense I couldn't get through. I spun the beer bottle at him, but he ducked, quicker than he had looked, and grinned again, still advancing. I knew he would flick the chain when he got closer, snapping the end in my face where one rap would rattle me hard enough to let him win.

  I reached my right hand back and drew my stick from the right hip pocket. It's lignum vitae, heavy as metal. I held it in front of me as if it were a saber, turning my body. The stick would give me a chance, a slim chance.

  He picked up the speed of his whirling, moving the chain with an almost invisible hiss in a line two feet out from his fist. And then I moved, slamming down on the chain with my stick, hitting as it came up on its curve so it wrapped itself around the stick. It was my instant, and I used it, tugging hard, trying to pull him off balance so I could block him across the face with the stick. But he was ahead of me. He let go of the chain and hit me a solid left hand that connected on my right cheekbone, making the stars come out and play. I backed off and shook my head as he came for me, swinging another haymaker at my head.

  I dropped stick and chain and ducked under his arm, hitting him a straight left, on the point of his nose. It splattered, gushing blood down his face, but he didn't hesitate. He came at me again, lashing out with his left foot. I hopped back, slamming my boot down on his rising instep. It would have stopped anybody in light shoes, but his boots saved his shin, and he grinned again, through his mask of blood.

  Slowly we circled, and his right hand went down to the pocket of his sleeveless leather vest. I wasn't placed right to hit him, so I watched as he brought out the flick knife. And I knew I could win.

  I learned knife fighting from Leroy Winston, a kid from Harlem. He was small and fast, and he showed me how he'd survived the gang fights that made up his block's social life. His biggest lesson had been switchblades. "When some dude touch that button, he God, man. He touch somethin' an' like he got a hard-on, jus' like that. Man, when he touch that click, you gotta second while he still groovin'."

  Jas moved to the same choreography. He drew the knife and pressed the button, and for perhaps a half second he was motionless, feeling all that steel power pouring through the handle into his wrist and up into his whole body.

  And that's when I hit him, smashing him right-handed in the face while I batted t
he knife away with my left. He staggered back, and I kneed him, three times, faster than Nureyev could have moved his feet, hammering his padded crotch so hard he didn't even have strength enough to moan. He fell facedown, clutching both hands to his testicles.

  I glanced around quickly. His brothers were motionless, faces hanging open, beer bottles dangling slackly from extended arms. I took charge, moving like a copper, rebuilding the authority I had given away by brawling. I pulled the handcuffs from the pouch on my belt and tugged his arms behind him, cuffing him quickly while he lay convex on the grass, knees and head on the turf, moaning.

  I straightened up and spoke to the leader. "Fair, right?"

  He nodded, trying to conceal his grin. "Fair," he growled, and the others began to nod. They weren't afraid of me, man for man, but they liked to see efficient fighting. I turned and picked up my stick, the chain still coiled around it. I put the stick in my pocket and held the chain coiled in my own left hand. If they decided to renege on our bargain, I wanted my right hand clear to get at my gun.

  "We had a deal," I said. "I'm gonna look at Jas's boots first, then the rest of you guys. Fair?"

  "Fair," the leader said again, and I realized that if any one of these ugly men had killed the boy, he wasn't aware of it.

  I checked Jas's right boot as he gave up trying to bury his face in the grass and rolled onto one side, showing tears mixed with the blood on his face. For a moment I almost felt sorry for him, but I was still in danger, so I kept it out of my face.

  His boot was studded on the heel, a row of iron studs that would have killed me but that didn't match my drawing. I let the foot fall and turned to the others. "Just the right boot, please. Can you hold it up behind you?"

  A couple of them swore, but the leader looked at them, and one by one they lifted their right feet and let me examine the underside of their boots. I came to a boot with the characteristic all-around bar on the heel, but it was too big to have made the print I had found at the Corbett place. Then I found three more, one after the other, but each one had breaks or nicks that would have shown in the footprint I'd seen. I made mental notes of them in case I turned up a print like any of them later. But for now I said nothing until I'd finished.

  I stood up after I'd looked at the last of them. "Thanks, guys. 'Preciate your help."

  The leader pointed to Jas, who was trying to sit up while one of the others wiped his face with the kind of tenderness a normal man might have shown to a child. I noticed it was the one who had ridden into the campsite with him earlier, a special buddy, I guessed, the one I would have to watch for from here on.

  "Wha' happens to Jas?" he asked me, and again I could read the self-interest. Any normal biker would make a stand here, demanding his release. The leader apparently didn't want him around any more than I did.

  "He needs to see the doctor," I said. "After which he's gonna need some rest. I figure he can stay at the station overnight unless you want to take him down to Sundridge to the hospital."

  "We look after our own," the leader said. "Take them cuffs offa him."

  "And you're taking him to the hospital." I was on a tightrope, the diplomat expecting the barbarians to respect the rules of cricket.

  The leader looked at me. His eyes were cold, but I could see through that gaze as if it were glass. He was going to talk tough but not cause any more trouble than would seem necessary to his crew. I wasn't safe, but at least the fuse on the dynamite wasn't smoldering right this minute.

  "I'll ask him when he can talk," he said.

  I shrugged. "Might be smart, but he's a tough sonofabitch."

  I turned and half crouched to unsnap the handcuffs and put them back in my pouch. Then I waved to them all without speaking and went back to the car, hoping that my trembling knees didn't show.

  The mirror told me that I was going to be wearing a mouse for the next little while. I didn't like it, but I've been hurt a lot worse, so I turned and backed out of the parkground and drove down toward the town. If the C.I.B. people couldn't help me, I had plenty to do over the next few hours, starting with a trip over to the Spenser place to have a calm talk with the boy's stepfather. But first I stopped in at the station.

  Freda was on the telephone, sounding like Lady Di. She looked up and winked, then saw my face and gasped. I waved her concern aside, and she returned to the phone call, still in character. What a pro.

  She hung up and came out from behind the desk on the run. "Reid, what happened?"

  "I walked into some knuckles."

  She came over all maternal. "That needs a cold compress, something to get the swelling down. Otherwise it could leave a permanent lump."

  "I'm lumpy enough nobody is going to notice," I told her. She stood in front of me, her hands on my shoulders in a businesslike stance, looking into my face as if it were a TV screen showing hot news.

  "How on earth did that happen?" she asked again. "What I've seen of you, I figured you were unhittable."

  "Unstoppable," I corrected. "This is no big deal. I won the showdown. And I'm up to here with work. Has anybody phoned?"

  On cue the telephone rang again, and she darted back and picked it up, answering in a bright, normal voice. She looked up over the receiver and waved to me, an urgent hand flap. I came forward, and she covered the phone. "It's for you. Somebody called Irv Goldman. Says it's important."

  "Thanks." I took the phone from her. "Hi, Irv. What'd you find out?"

  His voice was slow and cheerful, the voice he always used unless things were desperate. "Drew a lot of blanks, buddy. Those two guys, Dobos and Innes, nothing. Spenser, he's had three arrests for drunk driving. Two squeaky dismissals, one of them under our goddamn crazy Charter of Rights, no justifiable cause for stopping him. He's out on remand on the third one. I spoke to the traffic cop, and this one looks solid. He's going to lose his license."

  "Interesting, but it doesn't tie in with the case too tight."

  "Hold your horses. I haven't finished yet. That other guy you asked about, Carl Simmonds—now that was where it paid off."

  "Yeah? I didn't know Carl had a sheet." Fred was looking at me fascinated, as if I had started speaking Greek in front of her. I saw her eyes widen.

  Irv's voice rolled on, soft and calm. "A sheet. You bet your—well, I know there's a lady present; she answered the phone. You bet what you want, buddy. Your boy's done time, heavy time. In Kingston."

  Kingston Penitentiary is a maximum-security joint. Nobody goes there unless he's a guaranteed menace, to society or to himself. I phrased my question carefully. "What did he do?"

  Irv laughed. "Ten years, less good behavior. He got out in six."

  "Come on, now." My face ached, and I was in no mood for kidding. I wanted facts. Carl, in Kingston? I couldn't believe it.

  "Okay. He was involved in a gay murder. He and his roommate were burglarized by some kid. The roommate came home early and surprised him. The kid knifed the roommate, and he died. Carl saw the kid, reported the crime—that was all kosher enough. Then three weeks later he was out on St. Catherine Street."

  "This happened in Montreal?"

  "Of course, M'real, where the elite meet to eat." Irv was enjoying himself. "Yeah, so he sees the kid, or someone he thinks is the kid, so he pulls out a blade of his own, and he stabs him in the kidney. Only this isn't the right kid. This is some choirboy from Trois-Rivières. He may or may not have been cruising for the same kind of action Carl likes, but he ended up dead, and Carl ended up inside and very sorry."

  I blew out a long gusty sigh. "Poor bastards, all three of them," I said.

  Irv dropped his bantering voice. "Why in hell they call them 'gay' is beyond me," he said. "They sure lead lousy lives. Anyway, I figured you needed to know."

  I was silent for a moment, and he went on. "Listen, I'm off the weekend, and it's summer and all like that. I wondered if I could bring Di and the boys up there for a couple of days."

  "I'd like that a lot, Irv. There's a couple of spare room
s at my place where you can stay. I'm gonna be too busy to take you fishing, though."

  He laughed outright. "Fishing? I'm Jewish, you schmuck. The last Jew went fishing was Jonah, and you know what happened to him."

  I laughed with him, and he said, "Nah, Di and the boys can catch some rays. Maybe if you need a hand I could pitch in—kind of a busman's holiday."

  I looked down the telephone as if I could somehow lock eyes with him over the wire. "If you were single, I'd propose to you. That's the kindest thing anybody's said to me for years."

  "See you around noon," he said, and hung up.

  Chapter Eight

  I left Fred still fussing about my bruise and drove to the Spenser place. Already time was tightening up on me. I had to visit the divers in an hour, then go on and talk to the Levine boat party. By that time the two men who had found the body would be waiting for me at the office. I needed to take an hour to get a formal statement from them. It would complete the book work, but it wouldn't solve the case. I'd already picked their brains. Their best leads had been the location and the presence of the Levine boat. Perhaps either one of these second rungs on the ladder of investigation would be helpful. I checked my watch. Time was running out. Dobos and his friend would be back at the station long before me. Talking to them was fairly routine. On impulse I lifted the microphone and called Fred. I guess the punch I'd taken had made her serious. She answered crisply in her own voice, and I told her I wanted her to get a statement from each of the men.

  "I remember that," she said cheerfully. "You took one from me last time I was a guest in this hotel. And besides, I've played a policewoman on Night Heat since. Where do you keep the statement forms?"

  I told her, gave her the rundown on the rest of the formalities she needed to know, and then hung up, grateful that she was there to help me carry the extra load. Not the holiday weekend she'd planned for, but she was a lively woman, always looking for new experiences. Taking the statement would delight her. She wouldn't let it get her flustered like some people might.